The Notes in Between: A Conversation with Nicholas Britell
Nicholas Britell’s scores are so finely calibrated to the movies they inhabit that they become inextricable from the images on-screen. Whether it’s the staccato heartbeat of orchestral strings in Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight or the mix of piano motifs and hip-hop beats in the TV drama Succession, the sounds that the thirty-eight-year-old composer creates open up a wide range of emotional landscapes while also consistently avoiding the clichés of traditional film music.
A classically trained pianist with a background in hip-hop, Britell has caught the attention of Hollywood with his unique sonic textures, swiftly becoming one of the most sought-after composers in film and television. Central to Britell’s process is the organic rapport he develops with directors, which begins in the earliest stages of production. While he’s worked with a number of different filmmakers, he is best known for his Oscar-nominated collaborations with Jenkins and for his work with Adam McKay, for whom he has scored The Big Short, Vice, and Succession. Just before netting his first Emmy nomination (for Succession), Britell took some time to chat with me over the phone about his process and his genre-defying sound.
